1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telecommunications services. More particularly, the present invention relates to capabilities that enhance substantially the value and usefulness of various messaging paradigms including, inter alia, Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), etc.
2. Background of the Invention
As the ‘wireless revolution’ continues to march forward the importance to a Mobile Subscriber (MS)—for example a user of a Wireless Device (WD) such as a mobile telephone, a BlackBerry, etc. that is serviced by a Wireless Carrier (WC)—of their WD grows substantially.
One consequence of such a growing importance is the resulting ubiquitous nature of WDs—i.e., MSs carry them at almost all times and use them for an ever-increasing range of activities.
Coincident with the expanding presence of WDs has been the explosive growth of messaging—a steady annual increase, year over year, in the number of (SMS, MMS, etc.) messages that have been exchanged by and between WDs. That steady increase shows no sign of abating. For example, as reported by the industry group CTIA (see ctia.org on the World Wide Web [WWW]) in the U.S. there were over 158 billion SMS messages sent during 2006 (representing a 95% increase over 2005) and there were over 2.7 billion MMS messages sent during 2006 (representing a 100% increase over 2005).
Concurrent with the positive progress that the ‘wireless revolution’ has enjoyed society has, sadly, suffered significant negative progress. Among other things as individuals increasingly engage in different types of transactions (such as, possibly inter alia, the facilitation, completion, etc. of a payment element of, for example, an on-line purchase; an account status [e.g., balance, available credit, etc.] inquiry; a funds or money transfer operation; etc.) over different channels or mediums (such as, for example, the WWW, etc.) with different organizations (such as, possibly inter alia, utility companies, financial institutions, on-line retailers, etc.) they face a growing threat from, possibly inter alia, identity theft, financial fraud, information misuse, etc. and the serious consequences or repercussions of same. For example, a study by Utica College's Center for Identity Management and Information Protection (CIMIP) that included among other things an extensive review of U.S. Secret Service case files found that the median actual dollar loss for identity theft victims was $31,356.
The specific examples that were described above are illustrative only and it will be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the relevant art that numerous other examples are easily possible and indeed are fully within the scope of the present invention.
Given (1) the ubiquitous nature of WDs, (2) the popularity of (SMS, MMS, etc.) messaging, and (3) an expanding universe of threats it would be desirable to leverage WD-based messaging to enhance the security of the different types of transactions within which a MS may participate through the innovatory addition of an artifact that the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) has described as “an inexpensive and tried-and-tested method of authenticating a . . . customer's identity for . . . transactions”—i.e., a Personal Identification Numbers (PIN).
The present invention facilitates such enhanced transaction security in new, creative, and unconventional ways and addresses various of the not insubstantial challenges that are associated with same.